The first Jewish resident of Toronto was Judah Joseph, an English jeweller and optician, who arrived in 1842.[1] About a year later, he was joined by fellow jewellers Samuel and Marcus Rossin, and in 1844, by German-born brothers Abraham and Samuel Nordheimer.[2] However, true community life in Toronto did not begin until the mid-1850s, which saw victories in secular business leadership, and ultimately formed the first forward-facing Jewish-Torontonian identity.
Judah Joseph was a devoutly orthodox Jew, but traditional observance demands a community, and in the 1840s, Toronto’s Jewish cohort was not large or wealthy enough to allow him to practice Judaism at his desired level.[3] A shochet (kosher butcher), mohel (ritual circumciser), chazzan (prayer leader) and rabbi were too expensive to keep full-time, and could be hired from older Jewish communities in Montreal or Buffalo when needed.[4] Like many young Jewish communities, Toronto’s 1840s group began by purchasing a burial plot. Led by Joseph and Nordheimer, the purchase was made under the name “the Hebrew Congregation of the… City of Toronto.”[5] However, aside from the burial plot, no existing document ties the names of Toronto’s small Jewish population (just thirty-five members in 1849) to the “Hebrew Congregation,” implying a general lack of congregational activity.[6]
This apparent lack of solid community organization began to change in 1855, when Lewis Samuel and his wife Kate arrived, bringing with them greater means and drive to create a cohesive Jewish community in Toronto. Within a year of Samuel’s arrival, eighteen Jewish men gathered to discuss organizing a space to host services for the upcoming high holidays.[7] On October 10, 1856, an article appeared in Cincinnati’s Israelite, covering the results of their meeting:
“A new congregation was organized in [Toronto] during the last holidays. The few members contributed $600,[8] for the purpose, a fine and well-located room was furnished, and during the last holidays, the first meetings for divine worship took place… The two wealthiest men of the city, Messrs Rosin [Marcus or Samuel Rossin] and Nordheimer [Abraham or Samuel Nordheimer], did not favor the pious enterprise, [sic] cause unknown. שמגת עבית בשית [sic] We wish our brethren success and G-d’s blessing.”[9]
Less than a month after the meeting, the “new congregation” packed three hundred souls into a rented room on third floor of Love’s Drug Store for Rosh Hashana services, which became the default space for the congregational services for the next two decades.[10]
Unmentioned in the Israelite’s article, this first meeting came under the name “Sons of Israel,” expressly distinguishing themselves from the 1840s group responsible for purchasing the burial plot. The absence of the Rossins and Nordheimers’ further indicates their rift with Lewis Samuel’s new congregational leadership. Subsequent meeting minutes from the new group grumble over dues from members, distribution of mitzvot, and absences from services, which were finable offences in the method of English orthodoxy. These levies were highly objectionable for the old crowd, who, though economically comfortable, were not interested in paying for an organized Jewish way of life they believed they had built for themselves a decade earlier.[11]
The new congregational group struggled to hire a lasting mohel, chazzan, shochet, and melamed (teacher); roles which were astoundingly expected to be fulfilled by just one person.[12] Until the late 1850s, Judah Joseph and Abraham Nordheimer had resisted pressures from the new group to allow the shared use of burial plot. However, after Judah Joseph’s passing in 1857, and Abraham Nordheimer’s concession in 1858, the burial ground became the new congregation’s responsibility.[13]
What eventually brought the greater 1850s community together, leading to their success, was the fear of fracturing. Toronto’s Jewish community was too small to risk a split, for neither side would be able to sustain themselves much longer without the numbers, land ownership, leadership, or financial support of the other. These developments laid the groundwork for Toronto’s early Jewish community which truly began to blossom in the 1870s.
Bibliography
Secondary Sources
Samuel, Sigmund. In Return: The Autobiography of Sigmund Samuel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1963. https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/permalink/01UTORONTO_INST/14bjeso/alma991106364381006196.
Speisman, Stephen A. The Jews of Toronto: A History to 1937. McClelland & Stewart, 1979. https://librarysearch.library.utoronto.ca/permalink/01UTORONTO_INST/14bjeso/alma991106428638606196.
Warschaur, Heinz. The Story of Holy Blossom Temple and the Toronto Jewish Community. Second Revised Edition. Holy Blossom Temple, 1969.
Primary Sources (Chronological Order)
“Untitled,” The Israelite, October 10, 1856, https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/theisraelite/1856/10/10/01/article/5/?srpos=8&e=-------en-20-theisraelite-1--img-txIN%7ctxTI-toronto-------------1.
The Israelite “The Late J.G. Joseph” June 19, 1857, https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/theisraelite/1857/06/19/01/article/5/?srpos=92&e=01-01-1855-01-01-1880--en-20--81-byDA-img-txIN%7ctxTI-toronto-------------1.
[1] Stephen A. Speisman, The Jews of Toronto: A History to 1937, (McClelland & Stewart, 1979), 12; Heinz Warschaur, The Story of Holy Blossom Temple and the Toronto Jewish Community, Second Revised Edition (Holy Blossom Temple, 1969); 58; The Late J.G. Joseph,” The Israelite, June 19, 1857, https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/theisraelite/1857/06/19/01/article/5/?srpos=92&e=01-01-1855-01-01-1880--en-20--81-byDA-img-txIN%7ctxTI-toronto-------------1.
[2] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 13-14; Warschaur, The Story of Holy Blossom Temple, 69-70; 61-2.
[3] “The Late J.G. Joseph,” The Israelite, June 19, 1857; Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 16-7.
[4] Sigmund Samuel, In Return: The Autobiography of Sigmund Samuel (University of Toronto Press, 1963), 40.
[5] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 12; 16-7; Warschaur, The Story of Holy Blossom Temple, 62-4.
[6] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 16-7.
[7] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 21.
[8] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 22.
[9] “Untitled,” The Israelite, October 10, 1856, https://www.nli.org.il/en/newspapers/theisraelite/1856/10/10/01/article/5/?srpos=8&e=-------en-20-theisraelite-1--img-txIN%7ctxTI-toronto-------------1.
[10] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 22. Warschaur, The Story of Holy Blossom Temple, 86-8.
[11] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 23.
[12] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 25-7.
[13] Speisman, The Jews of Toronto, 23-5; Warschaur, The Story of Holy Blossom Temple, 65.
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